Mila’s POV“Aiden is gone, Mila. You know what has to be done.”The voice was calm, measured. Too calm for someone talking about killing the man I loved.I turned to face Hayden, my supposed ally, the man who had stood by Aiden’s side for years. His expression was unreadable, his gaze cold.“No,” I snapped, the word cutting through the tension like a blade. “He’s not gone. He’s still in there. I just need time to find a way to bring him back.”Hayden crossed his arms, his jaw tightening. “Time is the one thing we don’t have. Do you even realize what he’s doing out there? The destruction, the chaos? Every minute we wait, more people die.”I swallowed hard, the weight of his words pressing down on me like a vice. I knew he was right—Aiden, or rather the entity controlling him, had already left a trail of devastation in its wake. But I couldn’t bring myself to give up on him. Not yet. Not ever.“I’m not giving up on him,” I said firmly. “There has to be another way.”“There isn’t,” Hayde

Mila’s POV“Aiden, stop!” I screamed, my voice raw, echoing in the endless abyss we stood in. Shadows danced wildly around us, the entity’s laughter reverberating through the space, a sinister melody of destruction.He turned to me, his face pale, his eyes rimmed with exhaustion but burning with determination. “Mila, I have to do this.”“No, you don’t!” I stepped closer, my trembling hands reaching for him. “There has to be another way. We can fight this together.”“You don’t understand.” His voice cracked, and he clenched his fists, the veins in his arms pulsing with the strain of holding the entity back. “It’s in me. It’s feeding off me. If I don’t end this now, it’ll consume everything.”“Then let it take me instead!” The words burst from me before I could stop them, raw and desperate.Aiden’s eyes widened in shock and pain. “Don’t you dare,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t survive that. Mila, you’re the only reason I’ve held on this long.”The air around us

Mila’s POV“You’re saying the fight was pointless?” My voice was sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care. I slammed my hands on the table, glaring at the man who had barged into our home, dripping with cryptic warnings and doom.The man—Lucan, as he introduced himself—lifted his gaze, his eyes as dark and bottomless as an unlit abyss. “I’m saying you fought the wrong enemy, Mila. The entity was a distraction, a puppet for something far greater.”Aiden stood by the window, his arms crossed, jaw clenched tight enough to crack stone. “And you’ve known this all along, haven’t you?” His voice was cold, a dangerous edge I hadn’t heard in days.“I knew parts of it,” Lucan admitted, his expression unreadable. “But the rest... I pieced it together after the entity’s defeat.”“Convenient,” Aiden snapped, his fists glowing faintly. “You wait until now, when we’re already fractured, to show up and drop this on us?”I stepped between them, raising a hand. “Stop. Both of you.” My gaze locked on

Mila’s POV“Stop, Aiden. Look at me,” I pleaded, my voice trembling as I reached for him. The shadows around us seemed to pulse, as if alive, feeding on the despair crackling between us.He didn’t move, his back to me, shoulders tense. “I don’t think you understand what we’re up against, Mila,” he said, his voice low and unfamiliar. “The Weaver’s power is absolute. We can’t fight this.”“We can,” I insisted, stepping closer, though my legs felt like lead. The oppressive weight of the Underworld bore down on me, threatening to crush me under its dark energy. “We’ve faced impossible odds before. Together, remember?”He laughed, but it was cold, devoid of the warmth I knew. “This isn’t like before. This isn’t something we can simply outsmart or outrun. It’s everything—every wrong, every failure, every sin—given form. You can’t defeat that.”I hesitated, my heart hammering. His words hit too close to truths I didn’t want to face. “Maybe we can’t defeat it,” I said softly. “But we can try.

Mila’s POVThe air crackled with tension, the weight of the decision pressing down on me like a thousand pounds. Aiden stood before me, his face a mask of conflict, his eyes darkened by the shadows that seemed to have taken root in his very soul. The Weaver—the primordial force that had ripped us apart—hovered between us, a constant presence, a reminder of everything we stood to lose.“Aiden…” I whispered, my voice barely audible, a plea I wasn’t sure would reach him. My heart was breaking, every word I said feeling like a fragile thread hanging by a thread. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t.”He looked at me, and for a fleeting moment, I saw a glimpse of the man I had fallen in love with—the man who had been my rock, my everything. But that flicker of light was quickly consumed by the cold darkness, and I was left standing in front of a stranger.“You don’t have a choice, Mila,” he said, his voice harsh, almost hollow. “This is bigger than us. You know that. We either destroy this b